Porter mountain-bikes while Gail meditates in Utah’s high desert.
Mountain-Biking & Meditation in Utah’s High Desert
High Drama on the BICYCLE TOUR OF COLORADO!
In June 2018, our son and his triathlete friend Constantine joined us on the Bicycle Tour of Colorado, a strenuous multi-day ascent and descent through the Rockies. Here are our son, Philip, Porter, and Constantine in Leadville at the start. From Leadville, the guys biked to Aspen and Carbondale, but on the way we were […]
GDMBR #13: Colorado and HOME!
Porter is so done! We’re home from our Great Divide Mountain Bike Route adventure, after 2,700 miles through five states and two Canadian provinces; 82 days; 41 hotels, cabins, and campsites; four sets of tires; more glasses of wine than we care to disclose, and a lot of ice cream cones! The final 701 miles […]
GDMBR #12: Say Yes to Everything. Colorado!
Porter got so sick in the Grand Teton National Forest that I drove him ten hours from northern Wyoming to a Colorado Kaiser Urgent Care clinic open late. Abdominal x-rays didn’t show anything definitive, so I drove him the rest of the way home to see what would happen next. We took heart from the […]
GDMBR #11: Why Are We Doing This? Wyoming
Why are Porter and I on this four-month, 2,700-mile Great Divide Mountain Bike Route adventure? It’s a fair question and one we’re often asked, in light of Porter’s bike exploding, grizzly bears, logging trucks on narrow mountain roads, getting lost in the wilderness, storms, and all manner of physical and emotional risks. Nearly 2,000 miles […]
GDMBR #10: Liminal Space and Idaho
Infinitely deeper than our crossing from state to state, as Porter from Montana to Idaho, is the liminal space in which we now live. Day to day, moment to moment, we move not just from the ranch lands of Montana to the green farms of Idaho, but hover on thresholds of being. While Porter taxes […]
GDMBR #9: Porter’s Bike Explodes in Montana Wilderness!
Porter’s fine carbon fibre rear wheel exploded beneath him with a deafening KABLAM! and blew apart his Santa Cruz Tallboy mountain bike on a remote Montana road. “Lying on the ground, my first thought was the flare I carry to scare off bears went off,” he said. “My second thought was I’d been shot. My […]
GDMBR #8: Canada to Montana for Gail’s 70th!
Porter blazed over the Canadian border at Roosville into Montana, to camp in a wilderness described in Cycling the Great Divide as “so wild that grizzly bears too unruly to live elsewhere are relocated here by wildlife officials.” That little orange can outside his 7 oz. tarp is his bear spray. He had a mutually respectful […]
GDMBR #7: Celebrating Canada Day in CANADA!
Our son, Philip, and friends Martha and Randy (Porter’s mountaineering mentor, best man at our wedding, and Philip’s godfather), gathered in Canada to give Porter a great send-off from Banff on our change of direction, now north to south. Believe it or not, the northern end of the 2,774-mile Great Divide Mountain Bike Route is […]
GDMBR #6: Wind Lifts Wyoming Workers!
I thought what you’re probably thinking when I read this headline in a local Wyoming newspaper! But it refers, thankfully, to retraining oil and gas workers to work in wind energy. We’re endlessly fascinated by what’s going on in the places we’re visiting on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, from watching the National Finals […]